Ejaculations of a Tertioquadrinarian

By Ompallios

I'm convinced that "Stream of consciousness" writing was invented by William Faulkner as he crouched in his bathroom one Sunday morning, hugging the white wishing well and shouting "yoknapatawpha" instead of "Ralph." I just know it. Oh, I'm not whining: I love Faulkner and Joyce. Academicians call it "free-association" writing. In truth, it's a nifty method for people who can't write coherently… I'm planning on becoming quite GOOD at it.

What is a "tertioquadrinarian?" I hear you thinking. Well it's the closest I can come to someone in the middle of their fourth decade, such as I am. I hear that "octogenarians" get a private bathroom, a union card and 1000 Frequent-Flyer Miles. "Tertioquads" (if I may), have to struggle with the early glimmerings of midlife crisis. Personally I'd rather have the private bathroom.

Now mind you: I'm the kind of girl who fantasizes about closing my thighs on the gynecologist's head in a wrestler's "scissor lock" and giving him a good solid squeeze, just to see the LOOK on his face. Wouldn't you love to see the LOOK on his face? THAT'd make him go at his work with a little more caution in the future, no? After that, Suzanne Somers and that Thighmaster™ device would probably give the man nightmares.

You cross this kind of innocently perverse mentality with one's fourth decade…. Brother we're talking powderkeg here, if not goddamn Chernobyl.

When Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was in his Tertioquad era, he indicated that he felt like he was crossing the spine of a roof, and starting down the other side. A very sad admission from a man who not only captured my heart and spirit early in my life via "Cat's Cradle"… but ironically (from the market's view) overstayed his welcome in pop culture. Foreshadowing maybe? I remember him better from a guest shot in Rodney Dangerfield's "Back to School" than I do for his last two novels. I wonder if that speaks worse of me or of Vonnegut.

Funny thing about Vonnegut… he could enchant the damndest people: My dad was a hulking brute of an uneducated, slow-thinking railroadman, yet he once told me that he'd read Vonnegut. To maintain equilibrium in the universe, I suppose that means I'll have to go read some Mickey Spillane. Otherwise who knows WHAT the Christ will come roaring out of the abyss, wearing an August Derleth tee-shirt.

I still have a Thighmaster by the way…. Used the damn thing twice, and now it sits in a closet next to a Torquemadan contraption my ex-boyfriend left here, called a "Bullworker." The idea of a Bullworker was to squeeze it in from the ends to get Schwarzeneggerish chest muscles, or pull it outward by two flexible cords, to build Troy-Aiken-esque shoulders. Naturally this involved some fairly powerful springs under tension. Boyfriend slipped and caught himself in the jaw with it once… I still grin about that. I suggested best of three falls. Some people have NO sense of humor.

It's Tertioquadrinarianism which makes me sit here and Faulknerishly fire off free associations like a splurge gun (name the movie, friends, and win a prize), dealing with Thighmasters, Vonnegut, ex-boyfriends, southern accents and struggling red-faced gynecologists…. Five things among many which I find hilarious.

For the record, my boyfriend had the chest of Dana Carvey and the shoulders of Sammy Davis Jr. He also had the then-annoying (now-amusing in retrospect) habit of adding a syllable to my name. Christened "Theresa," containing seven precious letters, seven of course being the original "lucky number," his Carolinian drawl somehow ADDED more…. "The-ree-isss-ah" is about the closest I can come without accidentally summoning a Lovecraftian demon. It may have had to do with jaw damage resulting from the Bullworker incident.

In any event (, she said, snapping back to a comparatively linear time path): Let Monsieur Kurt freaking Vonnegut whine about the second half of his life pointing on a downward vector. I'm not planning to join him on the path, or to let my Chernobyl come through, unless provoked. Not as long as there's Mickey Spillane.

Adieu.

Terri F., known as ompallios7@aol.com to my little friends

Copyright ©1999, ompallios